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# Pragmatic Planning

Joakim von Braun reveals why maximum utilization guarantees zero engineering throughput. Discover how abandoning perfect foresight and planning for half capacity actually skyrockets your team's predictability.

- **Speakers:** [Joakim von Prónay](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@joakim-von-pronay)
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 Europe - Virtual Stage
- **Published:** July 2, 2026
- **Duration:** 36:38
- **URL:** https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/2012-pragmatic-planning

## Summary

**Core Narrative:** Joakim von Braun outlines how large-scale technology organizations struggle with predictability due to unrealistic planning, insufficient collaboration, and fragmented steering. Focusing on the persistent issue of over-utilization—where teams plan for more than 100% capacity—he argues that organizations must abandon the illusion of perfect foresight. The central premise is that by adopting pragmatic planning, engineering teams can achieve reliable delivery and be roughly right rather than precisely wrong. **Strategic Interventions:** The methodology hinges on three practical shifts: focusing on flow instead of estimation, planning for only half of presumed capacity, and strictly separating high-level outcome roadmaps from granular release plans. Using a traffic congestion metaphor grounded in flow and queue theory, von Braun illustrates how 100% utilization brings throughput to zero. When systems are entirely jammed with planned work or conflicting priority zero emergencies, natural variability causes immediate gridlock. By intentionally leaving slack in the system, teams can handle true unplanned emergencies without derailing steady progress. **Real-World Application:** Case studies demonstrate the transformative power of measuring predictability by simply tracking if teams delivered what they committed to. In one enterprise example, underpromising and reducing planned work enabled teams to jump from 0% to 83% predictability within a year. This reliability successfully shifted accountability back to stakeholders, forcing them to justify the actual business value of requests rather than relying on priority inflation. Additionally, converting static big room planning artifacts into weekly updated sliding window release plans and utilizing outcome-based roadmaps allowed teams to continuously resolve agile dependencies and maintain a realistic view of their delivery pipeline.

**Keywords:** software delivery predictability, pragmatic planning methodology, engineering capacity optimization, development flow theory, queue theory application, little's law, unplanned work management, priority inflation resolution, outcome-based roadmaps, now-next-later roadmap framework, active release planning, agile dependency tracking, big room planning alternatives, SAFe methodology, engineering delivery metrics, stakeholder accountability

## Chapters

1. **Core principles of pragmatic planning for software predictability** (00:00) — Achieving predictability in complex software delivery requires being roughly right.
1. **Three common organizational problems in software delivery** (01:23) — Unrealistic planning, insufficient collaboration, and fragmented steering hinder technology organizations.
1. **Three pragmatic solutions for predictable software delivery** (02:51) — Focusing on flow, planning half of available capacity, and separating roadmaps from release plans improve predictability.
1. **The traffic metaphor for roadmap capacity and organizational flow** (05:51) — Overloading a product roadmap creates congestion similar to traffic jams and halts organizational throughput.
1. **Combating priority inflation by planning for half capacity** (13:59) — Reducing planned workload increases delivery predictability and allows teams to handle actual emergencies effectively.
1. **Evolving static dependency boards into continuous release plans** (27:03) — Replacing quarterly big room planning with a sliding window approach enables dynamic dependency resolution.
1. **Structuring roadmaps around strategic outcomes instead of timelines** (33:23) — Utilizing a now, next, and later framework shifts the focus from promised dates to realizing business value.

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